Subject:The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

I would have put this in the video games section, but no one really goes there. What are some of your favourite games you used to play in the arcade?

Here are 10 at random that I used to sink a lot of quarters inhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFiPJQNVNxo

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:whistledogon05/13/13 at 9:13 pm

^ One of the games in that video above is Midnight Resistance. In the arcade, the joystick was a spindle. It worked like a standard joystick (left, right to move), but the trick was you would spin it like a dial to rotate the characters gun in a 360 motion while you walked left or right. I tried playing it on MAME, and it was nearly impossible (especially in the pictured clip above which requires you to shoot backwards).

I remember they ported it to the Sega Genesis and made it work without the spindle function, and to date, that is still one of my all-time favourite arcade to home console ports.

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

It's hard to describe how good this looked back in the day. If you're old enough to remember the first time you switched from NES 2D graphics to DOOM/Quake PC-level graphics in the early 90s, you've got the general idea. It was 1983. Thirty years ago, most games were rendered as 320x200 2D sprites/raster graphics at best, and then this thing came out where you could dogfight against TIE fighters, scream across the surface dodging laser cannons, and finally dive into the trench and blow up the Death Star in resolution that was better than what appears to be a screenshot from a handheld camera.

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:Howardon05/16/13 at 6:57 am

I pumped lotsa quarters into this one :D when I was in college:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUU_F9TvXco

God, this game was a bit hard!

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:nallyon05/16/13 at 9:58 am

Any Dig Dug fans out there?

http://atariage.com/5200/screenshots/s_DigDug_3.png

8)

I have played it a few times...but I wasn't very good at it.

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

It's hard to describe how good this looked back in the day. If you're old enough to remember the first time you switched from NES 2D graphics to DOOM/Quake PC-level graphics in the early 90s, you've got the general idea. It was 1983. Thirty years ago, most games were rendered as 320x200 2D sprites/raster graphics at best, and then this thing came out where you could dogfight against TIE fighters, scream across the surface dodging laser cannons, and finally dive into the trench and blow up the Death Star in resolution that was better than what appears to be a screenshot from a handheld camera.

It still looks cool with the black field and the minimal line graphics. Very menacing. 8)

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:nallyon05/16/13 at 5:25 pm

Also...games that involved popping a series of colored bubbles, particularly the Bust-A-Move series.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cNfUMmxkCg

I often played these in college video-arcade rooms.

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

It's hard to describe how good this looked back in the day. If you're old enough to remember the first time you switched from NES 2D graphics to DOOM/Quake PC-level graphics in the early 90s, you've got the general idea. It was 1983. Thirty years ago, most games were rendered as 320x200 2D sprites/raster graphics at best, and then this thing came out where you could dogfight against TIE fighters, scream across the surface dodging laser cannons, and finally dive into the trench and blow up the Death Star in resolution that was better than what appears to be a screenshot from a handheld camera.

What was awesome about this game was it was a massive cabinet, looked just like a cockpit that you could sit in, so it almost gave off the reality that you were in an actual X-Wing shooting Tie Fighters.

They Made an 'Empire Strikes Back' one that was similar, but the Arcade game based on Return of the Jedi was not like it at all. For that one, I seem to recall a real difficult level where you had to race speeder bikes through the forest on an angle

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:whistledogon05/16/13 at 5:35 pm

Also...games that involved popping a series of colored bubbles, particularly the Bust-A-Move series.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cNfUMmxkCg

I often played these in college video-arcade rooms.

I used to love that game. I recall sometimes in the arcade, I'd see it as Puzzle Bobble. I never really knew which was the real title (almost all of the console ports and remakes/sequels were titled Bust-A-Move), but thought Puzzle Bobble suited it more as the characters in it were based on Bubble Bobble, another game I sunk lots of quarters into ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inAAItNuFaE

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:nallyon05/16/13 at 5:42 pm

I used to love that game. I recall sometimes in the arcade, I'd see it as Puzzle Bobble. I never really knew which was the real title (almost all of the console ports and remakes/sequels were titled Bust-A-Move), but thought Puzzle Bobble suited it more as the characters in it were based on Bubble Bobble, another game I sunk lots of quarters into ...

There was also a similar game called Puzzle De Pon; one main difference is that you didn't have to pop all the bubbles, just those which were touching a "target"; also, the "ceiling" wouldn't get lower every few seconds. You still had a time limit to clear the level.

Edit: According to Wikpedia, PDP is also a "Bubble Bobble" game.

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:whistledogon05/16/13 at 6:03 pm

Here's two wrestling games I used to play in the arcades ...

WWF Superstars (1989)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6Mw4ClNPp0

WWF Wrestlefest (1991)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cs2CHHpsu0

There was also a similar game called Puzzle De Pon; one main difference is that you didn't have to pop all the bubbles, just those which were touching a "target"; also, the "ceiling" wouldn't get lower every few seconds. You still had a time limit to clear the level.

Edit: According to Wikpedia, PDP is also a "Bubble Bobble" game.

I do seem to recall that one, but it was seldom seen in arcades I used to frequent

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:nallyon05/16/13 at 6:06 pm

I do seem to recall that one, but it was seldom seen in arcades I used to frequent

Must not have been as popular. But I do know that during my first year in college (1998-1999), it was in the gameroom of the campus center building; I began playing it more often during the spring semester. I think it got taken away in fall 1999 in favor of a Bust-A-Move game.

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:Howardon05/16/13 at 7:48 pm

Also...games that involved popping a series of colored bubbles, particularly the Bust-A-Move series.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cNfUMmxkCg

I often played these in college video-arcade rooms.

I think I remember this game? ???

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:Howardon05/16/13 at 7:51 pm

Here's two wrestling games I used to play in the arcades ...

WWF Superstars (1989)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6Mw4ClNPp0

WWF Wrestlefest (1991)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cs2CHHpsu0

I do seem to recall that one, but it was seldom seen in arcades I used to frequent

I liked Wrestlefest better than Superstars.

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:nallyon05/16/13 at 8:02 pm

I think I remember this game? ???

I know it's been around for a long time; I think it was new in the 90's.

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:whistledogon05/16/13 at 8:04 pm

I liked Wrestlefest better than Superstars.

Wrestlefest was a longer game and had more to it. Wrestlefest didn't have Honky Tonk man though :P

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:Howardon05/16/13 at 8:23 pm

Wrestlefest was a longer game and had more to it. Wrestlefest didn't have Honky Tonk man though :P

I used to waste 20.00 in quarters trying to beat The LOD.

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:nallyon05/20/13 at 12:25 am

There was also a similar game called Puzzle De Pon; one main difference is that you didn't have to pop all the bubbles, just those which were touching a "target"; also, the "ceiling" wouldn't get lower every few seconds. You still had a time limit to clear the level.

Edit: According to Wikpedia, PDP is also a "Bubble Bobble" game.

I do seem to recall that one, but it was seldom seen in arcades I used to frequent

I also remembered that PDP had a couple of special bubbles: one that when activated would show the path of a bubble to be fired (with the path bouncing off the wall and ending in the spot where the bubble would land; it would stay on for maybe ten bubbles or until the level was cleared), and one that would pop all the bubbles of a certain color (whichever color was hit with this bubble; this one would be helpful in levels with only three or four different colors). There was also a "bomb" which would kill a multitude of bubbles that were touching, regardless of color; this would prove to be useful in tight situations...because if a bubble went below the line, that also ended the game (just like in Bust-A-Move). I remember using several dollars in quarters just to beat levels with only three colors.

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:MaxwellSmarton05/20/13 at 2:09 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYSupJ5r2zo

You got Asteroids?No, but my dad does.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up8siWU92yI

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:Howardon05/20/13 at 6:34 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYSupJ5r2zo

You got Asteroids?No, but my dad does.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up8siWU92yI

that game was quite exciting.

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:karenon05/20/13 at 11:08 am

^^ Asteroids was about the only arcade game I played.

Defender was another good one and I would occasionally play Pac Man

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:whistledogon05/20/13 at 3:40 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYSupJ5r2zo

You got Asteroids?No, but my dad does.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up8siWU92yI

When I saw that movie as a kid, I didn't know that Dale wasn't talking about video games ;D

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:Howardon05/20/13 at 7:40 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVH1mCc5EvU

Ms.Pac Man

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:MaxwellSmarton05/21/13 at 9:39 pm

Of course, the home video game market with the "save" function allowed those multilevel video games you could play for hours and days. At the arcades, you had to start from the beginning and it cost a whole 'nother quarter. The more money you had, the longer you could play. It sucked when I was twelve and I only had a dollar's worth to play. Had to choose wisely. So I wanted to play Pacman but there would be a dufus 22-year-old math major jockeying the console with a whole roll of quarters, and he's gonna ride it 'till it blows a circuit! ::)

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:Howardon05/22/13 at 7:03 am

Of course, the home video game market with the "save" function allowed those multilevel video games you could play for hours and days. At the arcades, you had to start from the beginning and it cost a whole 'nother quarter. The more money you had, the longer you could play. It sucked when I was twelve and I only had a dollar's worth to play. Had to choose wisely. So I wanted to play Pacman but there would be a dufus 22-year-old math major jockeying the console with a whole roll of quarters, and he's gonna ride it 'till it blows a circuit! ::)

I hate when you want to play a video game and some moron has this roll of quarters and is trying to beat the game while you're waiting to put quarters in that video game.

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:Howardon05/22/13 at 7:09 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sSj7OO_tNU

Q-Bert (1982)

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:nallyon05/22/13 at 11:52 am

Ms.Pac Man

I would so love to play that game again. I got really good at it when there was one in the college gameroom (either at Mission College, where I was when there was a tabletop version of the game in 1999-2000, how long it stayed after I left there, I do not know; or at CSUN, where there was the standard arcade version in 2004-2005).

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:Foo Baron05/22/13 at 11:28 pm

So I wanted to play Pacman but there would be a dufus 22-year-old math major jockeying the console with a whole roll of quarters, and he's gonna ride it 'till it blows a circuit!

That's weird. Arcade etiquette dictated that if the game couldn't be continued, whoever put their quarter (between levels, or during a pause in the action) on the control panel or the corner of the display bezel (where it couldn't obstruct the view of the screen) had rights to the next play.

One could also request "doubles", but as some games changed their behavior between 1-player and 2-player modes, and because some players preferred to play all their lives in succession rather than breaking concentration between lives, it was always a request; no offense was taken if an offer of playing doubles was declined.

In some games, like Tempest, two players were better than one. You could advance in the game but only if you put another quarter in within 30-60 seconds of the game's end, and if you'd completed a level or two at the approximate difficulty level reached by the last player. In 2P mode, both players could advance if either player beat a level. Two equally-matched Tempest players could learn from each other (and the lesser of unequally-matched players could get exposure to advanced levels he/she wouldn't have been able to reach alone) if they were willing to break concentration by alternating between lives.

Lu9Ycq64Gy4

No Tempest reference is complete without Rush, Subdivisions, at 4:36 in the video.

Subject:Re: The Coin-Op Arcade Game Thread

Written By:MaxwellSmarton05/23/13 at 1:48 pm

That's weird. Arcade etiquette dictated that if the game couldn't be continued, whoever put their quarter (between levels, or during a pause in the action) on the control panel or the corner of the display bezel (where it couldn't obstruct the view of the screen) had rights to the next play.

That's why I said math major, euphemism for socially clueless! 8)

The specific incident I remember was at a pizza joint. The geek just kept feeding quarters into the Pacman. He probably didn't go to the arcade 'coz the skater kids would beat him up!